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By NASA
The Roscosmos Progress 90 cargo craft approaches the International Space Station for a docking to the Poisk module delivering nearly three tons of food, fuel, and supplies replenishing the Expedition 72 crew. Credit: NASA NASA will provide live coverage of the launch and docking of a Roscosmos cargo spacecraft delivering approximately three tons of food, fuel, and supplies to the Expedition 73 crew aboard the International Space Station.
The unpiloted Roscosmos Progress 92 spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 3:32 p.m. EDT, Thursday, July 3 (12:32 a.m. Baikonur time, Friday, July 4), on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Live launch coverage will begin at 3:10 p.m. on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
After a two-day, in-orbit journey to the station, the spacecraft will dock autonomously to the space-facing port of the orbiting laboratory’s Poisk module at 5:27 p.m. on Saturday, July 5. NASA’s rendezvous and docking coverage will begin at 4:45 p.m. on NASA+.
The Progress 92 spacecraft will remain docked to the space station for approximately six months before departing for re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere to dispose of trash loaded by the crew.
Ahead of the spacecraft’s arrival, the Progress 90 spacecraft will undock from the Poisk module on Tuesday, July 1. NASA will not stream undocking.
The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology, and human innovation that enables research not possible on Earth. For nearly 25 years, NASA has supported a continuous U.S. human presence aboard the orbiting laboratory, through which astronauts have learned to live and work in space for extended periods of time. The space station is a springboard for developing a low Earth economy and NASA’s next great leaps in exploration, including missions to the Moon under Artemis and, ultimately, human exploration of Mars.
Learn more about the International Space Station, its research, and crew, at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
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Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones / Joseph Zakrzewski
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov / joseph.a.zakrzewski@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jun 30, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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By NASA
NASA/Nichole Ayers A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying the Axiom Mission 4 crew docks to the space-facing port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module on June 26. Axiom Mission 4 is the fourth all-private astronaut mission to the orbiting laboratory, welcoming commander Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) astronaut and pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, and mission specialists ESA (European Space Agency) project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and HUNOR (Hungarian to Orbit) astronaut Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
The crew is scheduled to remain at the space station, conducting microgravity research, educational outreach, and commercial activities, for about two weeks. This mission serves as an example of the success derived from collaboration between NASA’s international partners and American commercial space companies.
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:04:13 Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA head of Space and Robotic Exploration, explains that Ignis mission will include an ambitious technological and scientific programme with several experiments led by ESA and proposed by the Polish space industry.
On 26 June 2025, ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from Poland and his crewmates arrived to the International Space Station on the Axiom-4 mission (Ax-4).
The Polish project astronaut is the second of a new generation of European astronauts to fly on a commercial human spaceflight opportunity with Axiom Space.
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By European Space Agency
Asteroid 2024 YR4 made headlines earlier this year when its probability of impacting Earth in 2032 rose as high as 3%. While an Earth impact has now been ruled out, the asteroid’s story continues.
The final glimpse of the asteroid as it faded out of view of humankind’s most powerful telescopes left it with a 4% chance of colliding with the Moon on 22 December 2032.
The likelihood of a lunar impact will now remain stable until the asteroid returns to view in mid-2028. In this FAQ, find out why we are left with this lingering uncertainty and how ESA's planned NEOMIR space telescope will help us avoid similar situations in the future.
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
In addition to drilling rock core samples, the science team has been grinding its way into rocks to make sense of the scientific evidence hiding just below the surface.
NASA’s Perseverance rover uses an abrading bit to get below the surface of a rocky out-crop nicknamed “Kenmore” on June 10. The eight images that make up this video were taken approximately one minute apart by one of the rover’s front hazard-avoidance cameras. NASA/JPL-Caltech On June 3, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover ground down a portion of a rock surface, blew away the resulting debris, and then went to work studying its pristine interior with a suite of instruments designed to determine its mineralogic makeup and geologic origin. “Kenmore,” as nicknamed by the rover science team, is the 30th Martian rock that Perseverance has subjected to such in-depth scrutiny, beginning with drilling a two-inch-wide (5-centimeter-wide) abrasion patch.
“Kenmore was a weird, uncooperative rock,” said Perseverance’s deputy project scientist, Ken Farley from Caltech in Pasadena, California. “Visually, it looked fine — the sort of rock we could get a good abrasion on and perhaps, if the science was right, perform a sample collection. But during abrasion, it vibrated all over the place and small chunks broke off. Fortunately, we managed to get just far enough below the surface to move forward with an analysis.”
The science team wants to get below the weathered, dusty surface of Mars rocks to see important details about a rock’s composition and history. Grinding away an abrasion patch also creates a flat surface that enables Perseverance’s science instruments to get up close and personal with the rock.
This close-up view of an abrasion showing distinctive “tool marks” created by the Perseverance’s abrading bit was acquired on June 5. The image was taken from approximately 2.76 inches (7 centimeters) away by the rover’s WATSON imager. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Perseverance’s gold-colored abrading bit takes center stage in this image of the rover’s drill taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument on Aug. 2, 2021, the 160th day of the mission to Mars.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Time to Grind
NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, each carried a diamond-dust-tipped grinder called the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) that spun at 3,000 revolutions per minute as the rover’s robotic arm pushed it deeper into the rock. Two wire brushes then swept the resulting debris, or tailings, out of the way. The agency’s Curiosity rover carries a Dust Removal Tool, whose wire bristles sweep dust from the rock’s surface before the rover drills into the rock. Perseverance, meanwhile, relies on a purpose-built abrading bit, and it clears the tailings with a device that surpasses wire brushes: the gaseous Dust Removal Tool, or gDRT.
“We use Perseverance’s gDRT to fire a 12-pounds-per-square-inch (about 83 kilopascals) puff of nitrogen at the tailings and dust that cover a freshly abraded rock,” said Kyle Kaplan, a robotic engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Five puffs per abrasion — one to vent the tanks and four to clear the abrasion. And gDRT has a long way to go. Since landing at Jezero Crater over four years ago, we’ve puffed 169 times. There are roughly 800 puffs remaining in the tank.” The gDRT offers a key advantage over a brushing approach: It avoids any terrestrial contaminants that might be on a brush from getting on the Martian rock being studied.
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This video captures a test of Perseverance’s Gaseous Dust Removal Tool (gDRT) in a vacuum chamber at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in August 2020. The tool fires puffs of nitrogen gas at the tailings and dust that cover a rock after it has been abraded by the rover.NASA/JPL-Caltech Having collected data on abraded surfaces more than 30 times, the rover team has in-situ science (studying something in its original place or position) collection pretty much down. After gDRT blows the tailings away, the rover’s WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) imager (which, like gDRT, is at the end of the rover’s arm) swoops in for close-up photos. Then, from its vantage point high on the rover’s mast, SuperCam fires thousands of individual pulses from its laser, each time using a spectrometer to determine the makeup of the plume of microscopic material liberated after every zap. SuperCam also employs a different spectrometer to analyze the visible and infrared light that bounces off the materials in the abraded area.
“SuperCam made observations in the abrasion patch and of the powdered tailings next to the patch,” said SuperCam team member and “Crater Rim” campaign science lead, Cathy Quantin-Nataf of the University of Lyon in France. “The tailings showed us that this rock contains clay minerals, which contain water as hydroxide molecules bound with iron and magnesium — relatively typical of ancient Mars clay minerals. The abrasion spectra gave us the chemical composition of the rock, showing enhancements in iron and magnesium.”
Later, the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) and PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) instruments took a crack at Kenmore, too. Along with supporting SuperCam’s discoveries that the rock contained clay, they detected feldspar (the mineral that makes much of the Moon brilliantly bright in sunlight). The PIXL instrument also detected a manganese hydroxide mineral in the abrasion — the first time this type of material has been identified during the mission.
With Kenmore data collection complete, the rover headed off to new territories to explore rocks — both cooperative and uncooperative — along the rim of Jezero Crater.
“One thing you learn early working on Mars rover missions is that not all Mars rocks are created equal,” said Farley. “The data we obtain now from rocks like Kenmore will help future missions so they don’t have to think about weird, uncooperative rocks. Instead, they’ll have a much better idea whether you can easily drive over it, sample it, separate the hydrogen and oxygen contained inside for fuel, or if it would be suitable to use as construction material for a habitat.”
Long-Haul Roving
On June 19 (the 1,540th Martian day, or sol, of the mission), Perseverance bested its previous record for distance traveled in a single autonomous drive, trekking 1,348 feet (411 meters). That’s about 210 feet (64 meters) more than its previous record, set on April 3, 2023 (Sol 753). While planners map out the rover’s general routes, Perseverance can cut down driving time between areas of scientific interest by using its self-driving system, AutoNav.
“Perseverance drove 4½ football fields and could have gone even farther, but that was where the science team wanted us to stop,” said Camden Miller, a rover driver for Perseverance at JPL. “And we absolutely nailed our stop target location. Every day operating on Mars, we learn more on how to get the most out of our rover. And what we learn today future Mars missions won’t have to learn tomorrow.”
News Media Contact
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
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Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
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Last Updated Jun 25, 2025 Related Terms
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